Duke of York, 8 Dering Street

Duke of York, 8 Dering Street, W1S 1AA

Nasty. Just off Bond Street and full of the sort of people I really don't want to run into. Spread over three floors (boasting Pool! Darts! Games!) it has been lathered in the bland white-walled decor originally found only in Clapham, and now spreading out across the capital like a bad strain of influenza. Boorish rugby boys swill lager and pick the crushed bones of foxes and proletarian scum from underneath their desert boots, all the while droning on about their salaries and how bad the weather is for skiing. Their girlfriends (all seemingly cloned from a strand of Julia Carling's hair) manage to bleat on about nothing at all for hours on end. Does it do food or show sports? Do I care?

Reviewed by Fred Flange, Mar 2005

Telephone: 020 7629 0319

Nearby pubs: The Phoenix, 37 Cavendish Square (260 metres), The Grosvenor Arms, 2, Grosvenor St, Mayfair (240 metres), The Mason's Arms, 38 Maddox St (290 metres), The Iron Duke, 11 Avery Row (200 metres), The Hog in the Pound, 28 South Molton Street (180 metres), The Old Explorer, 23 Great Castle street, Oxford Circus (280 metres)

Nearest station: Bond Street, Zone 1 (250 metres)